The most widespread medium for distributing motion pictures is the videocassette. The conventional practice is to provide only one language soundtrack on each videocassette. Similarly, if subtitles are to be provided, e.g., French language subtitles for an "English" motion picture to be distributed in France, only subtitles in that language will appear. (Subtitles in two languages are possible, but this obviously interferes even more with the video.) This means that different audio and subtitle versions of the same "foreign" motion picture must be prepared for distribution in different countries.
Rather than to dedicate a different dialog-language and subtitle-language version of the same motion picture for each combination of dialog and subtitle languages (if each of 20 dialog languages is to have subtitles in the other 19 languages, 380 different dialog/subtitle versions would be necessary), it would be far more advantageous to provide multiple soundtracks, containing different dialog languages, and multiple language subtitle captions on the same carrier; this would require the production of far fewer versions of the same motion picture. Because of the large storage requirements, however, this has not proven to be practical.
Digitally encoded optical disks are in theory far superior for the distribution of motion pictures and other forms of presentation. Especially advantageous is the use of "compressed video," by which it is possible to digitally encode a motion picture on a disk no larger than the present-day audio CD. While much effort has been expended in developing compressed video systems, less work has been devoted to the provision of multiple soundtracks and multiple subtitles on the same software carrier.
It is therefore an object of this invention to provide a system and method for playing a software carrier, such as an optical disk, on which a motion picture has been recorded accompanied with subtitles in multiple languages. (The provision of multiple dialog language soundtracks, while described, is not claimed herein other than in combination with the provision of multiple subtitle languages.)